Search form

Search form

The Senate Armed Services Committee's personnel subcommittee passed legislation Tuesday that would limit the annual pay raise for troops to 1%, as requested by the Pentagon. The measure conflicts with the defense bill passed last week by the House Armed Services Committee.

Related Summaries

Text of the proposed defense authorization bill for 2015 has been released by the House and Senate Armed Services committees after months of tense negotiations. "We ask our colleagues to support us in bringing up and passing this bill without amendment as the best of a bad set of options," said Carl Levin, D-Mich., Senate Armed Services Committee chairman.

The 2014 defense authorization just passed by the House gives troops a 1.8% raise, higher than the Senate version's 1% hike, setting the two sides up for a debate in conference committee. Meanwhile, civilian pay would remain frozen under the House defense bill.

The Senate Armed Services Committee passed a $625 billion budget for the Pentagon, but did not include funding for possible changes in counterterrorism operations or shifting oversight of unmanned aerial vehicles. The panel also deferred on funding for the U.S. withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.

The Senate Armed Services Committee voted to approve a $625 billion budget for the Pentagon in fiscal 2014. Committee members voted 23-3 in favor of the spending bill. The budget will now head to the full Senate for a vote.

Although a Senate measure to break up the pay-TV bundle is unlikely to pass, the idea of offering smaller packages is backed by Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt. "The symbolism there is people are starting to pay attention to the fact that the multichannel TV package ... is starting to get too expensive for lower-income people," Britt said at The Cable Show in Washington, D.C.